Another week down. Numbers are getting better here, but I guess there’s a long way to go to having enough vaccines available. Having K back home has been interesting and mostly good. It also means you’ll get to see some of her cooking, as she loves it about as much as I do. She’s agreed to not totally take over my kitchen. So, let’s talk about this week’s food.
Thursday (1/28) – Katie and I made Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes. I used the instant pot for the potatoes because it’s just so fast and easy and uses less water than the stovetop method. My meatballs were a little loose and kind of falling apart, but they were still delicious, and the sauce came out perfect.
Friday (1/29) – I attempted a high saturation sourdough, and it did not go well. It tasted fine, but it was ultra dense. For dinner, I made the Creamy Artichoke and Spinach pasta again. This has become a new favorite recipe around here. It’s delicious. It incorporates the veggies so you have a one pot meal. I should stop using this pan for it as the cheese gets stuck in the little dimples on the bottom, and is a nightmare to clean.
Saturday (1/30) – I made homemade biscuits using the recipe from Damn Delicious again and some homemade sausage, and we had sausage, egg and cheese biscuits. I just put egg on the little vegetarian’s. I did some modifications to the second half of the bread dough I’d made and took a second stab at it. This time the bread was better texture-wise, but well, I got a funny reaction in the oven and well, you just have to check out the pictures. For dinner, I made wild rice stir fry using yellow squash, carrots, orange bell pepper and peas. I also sautéed some shrimp for the meat eaters to put on top.
Sunday (1/31) – My husband actually cooked dinner. He cooked up some bratwursts I had defrosted and warmed up some leftover macaroni and cheese. It was a very nice and simple dinner. Sometimes I need simple. And we were having quite the snowstorm.
Monday (2/1) – I made a nice big pot of vegetarian pinto beans and a pan of cornbread. It was some of my best cornbread. And I thought the beans were awesome, though I did get them a bit spicy. Surprisingly, the kid still ate them. In my defense, eating them with the cornbread mellowed the spice a bit.
Tuesday (2/2) – Hmm, trying to figure out if we ate Tuesday. I seem to have no pictures. Apparently, having Katie home is sometimes distracting! (But in a good way.) I baked chicken legs with harissa paste and tiny potatoes with garlic and olive oil. I only recently discovered harissa, and I love it on chicken.
Wednesday (2/3) – Katie cooked again. She made a homemade marinara sauce that cooked for 22 hours in the slow cooker and then used it on kale and ricotta stuffed manicotti. It was very good. And she decided to be a super big sister and let the little one help her make it. She’s far more patient in the kitchen with her than I am most days.
So look at that, I am learning to share my kitchen. I let someone else cook two meals this week. And yes, I’m having many OCD moments when I go in and find things not in their right places. But I enjoy cooking with Katie. She’s loved cooking since she was around 9, and she’s pretty good with flavor profiles. Now, if I can teach her to clean up as she goes. Ya, I know, that is something I often struggle with too!
Foodie's Delimma 